


all of these words whispered in my ear

by n00blici0us



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 17:29:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/n00blici0us/pseuds/n00blici0us
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An episode tag to Fugue in Red, Jane and Cho-style.</p><p>So his memory is back, then. Cho knows that he would only have come here if his memory came back. He remembers the thump thump thud of his heart when he realized that Jane was alive, was fine, but had lost his memory and feels his heart speed up now in response to that memory, his pulse quickening under Jane’s fingers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all of these words whispered in my ear

Cho hears the soft knock on the door as he is lying in bed, resolutely Not Thinking about the empty space beside him. He’s pretty sure he knows what the knock means, but he’s still slow to get up, drag his worn t-shirt—the one he wears when it’s just him and Jane at home—over his head, and pad lightly to the door. He keeps the lights off inside, so when he opens the door he sees Jane, only illuminated by the hallway, a halo of light around his head. He leans against the doorway and waits.

“Hi,” Jane says, finally, after a few moments of silence when it becomes clear that Cho isn’t going to speak first. “Can I come in?”

Cho hesitates for a moment. He wants to refuse, tell Jane that he was sleeping, he has an early morning, they’ll talk about this tomorrow, any number of excuses to put off this conversation, but it’s Jane—it’s not as if they’ve played these games before.

Instead, he just opens the door wider and walks further inside. Jane follows him, closing the door with a soft snick that shuts out the hallway light. Now Jane is the one in the shadows while Cho stands in a pool of moonlight. He wants to move. He feels uncomfortably open here, stripped bare of his defenses, the moonlight highlighting every expression, every feeling that he is just too damn tired to suppress right now behind his normal façade, his iron mask.

Jane grabs his wrist as he is shifting, arresting his movement. His fingers are warm around Cho’s wrist.

So his memory is back, then. Cho knows that he would only have come here if his memory came back. He remembers the thump thump thud of his heart when he realized that Jane was alive, was fine, but had lost his memory and feels his heart speed up now in response to that memory, his pulse quickening under Jane’s fingers. He had reintroduced himself as Jane’s colleague—let himself be introduced as merely part of the team—because what else was he going to do? It’s not as if he could shake Jane’s hand and say, “Hi, remember me? I’m your secret lover.”

“Kimball,” Jane says and Cho feels a knot that he didn’t even know he was carrying inside his chest loosen, just a bit, at Jane calling him that, in that tone of voice, instead of the impersonal “Mr. Cho” he had to listen to all afternoon.

“Yeah,” he says, uncrossing his arms from his chest, gently so he doesn’t disengage Jane’s light grip. It’s not enough though, not enough to erase the memory of Jane, pretending that he remembered his family only to run away. He had knocked softly then, used his bedroom voice—the one that rarely made an appearance when he was Agent Cho—and opened the door to find nothing, no grieving Jane, just a con man who had run.

Jane shifts his grip to run his fingers over the bruised knuckles. He looks up at Cho, a question in his eyes.

“The door. In the burned house,” Cho replies. What he likes—loves—best about Jane is how he doesn’t have to go into lengthy explanations about anything, that Jane understands so much when he says almost nothing. Jane will remember.

And he does, a brief tightening of his clasp serving as the only indication. “I’m sorry,” he says simply, looking into Cho’s eyes, his face honest and open like it hadn’t been all day. “Forgive me.”

It has to be enough, because Cho knows that’s all that he will get and all that he can ask for. It’s not in either of their natures to open up completely, to give more than this strict open honesty of how they are feeling _now_. It’s why he didn’t question Jane wanting to be alone as he processed the memories of his family—so far they only talk about the past when it affects the present. One day, it might change, but Cho doesn’t dwell on the what-ifs; he sticks to the present facts. He bites back all the things he wants to say, releases all the hurt feelings from Jane saying goodbye at the station—kissing the woman on his arm, ready to run away with his ill-gotten goods—and focuses on forgiving Jane in the present. “How’d you get away from Lisbon?”

Jane chuckles wryly, softly, “I told her that I needed to apologize to you for making you a mark.”

Cho nods once, shortly, but he can’t help a small smile that emerges. So Jane told Lisbon then—or as close an approximation that he can make right now. Jane has always wanted secrecy; Cho merely wants discretion. Lisbon’s not stupid; it’s not as if Jane is beating down Rigsby’s door to give him an apology for the sixty-three dollars that he stole, or returning it, for that matter. He lets Jane pull him in, close, palms caressing his back in broad, sure strokes.

“Some of it was true,” Jane says, muffled, speaking into Cho’s neck. “I do like you, really, I do.”

That does provoke a chuckle, a quick hitch of his shoulders up and down and a deep exhale as Cho lets himself relax into Jane’s embrace. “I know,” he says and trusts that Jane will understand him as he always has.

 

fin.


End file.
